Joseph Conrad, the Congo, and the "Heart of Darkness"

The explorer and journalist Henry Stanley played a significant role in the founding of Leopold's Congo. He figures here in this advertisement as an endorser of "Congo Soap."


For many the Congo came to represent the epitome of the violence and brutality that lay at the true "heart of darkness" of the imperial project.

Joseph Conrad's first language was Polish. Yet as a young man he learned English and went on to become one of the great stylists in the language. It was Conrad's experiences a river steamboat captain in the Congo that would inspire him to write one of the most significant novels of the twentieth century--"Heart of Darkness."


Conrad's exploration of the cruelty and violence that man can release on his fellow man inspired the filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola to bring those same issues forward to America's experiences in the jungles of Vietnam in his classic, "Apocalypse Now."